When I was 8, I had recently gotten a new bike. A neighbor kid was over at my house one day, and said that he couldn’t ride my old, small bike fast any more (funny in retrospect, because I’m pretty sure he had never ridden my bike, but when you’re eight you don’t bother yourself with trivial details like that). I, of course, had to show that I still could ride it fast, so I hopped on and went tearing down the driveway. The driveway was a hill, so I was going pretty fast when I got to the bottom. Being eight, I didn’t think to look for cars before going into the street.
Next thing I remember is waking up laying in the street with a tire on my arm. The neighbor kid was on the curb screaming, “Move! Move!” Someone did eventually get the driver to move her car off my arm, and miraculously I had not broken anything. The doctor said it was because I was so young, my bones were still flexible. I did have a really nasty case of road rash, though, and I still have a scar from it.
I learned a very important thing that day: Cars are heavy.